10 Replies - 1174 Views - Last Post: 15 April 2009 - 11:30 PM

Help with some things.

Posted 01 April 2009 - 07:26 AM

Hello all. Im 17 years old a junior in high school and plan on going to college for some kind of computer related course. Ive been an avid gamer for a good 7 years and love computers. I dont know much about computers but i have done a few mods on my computer but never touched programming or anything of the sort.

Anyways im wondering what major would be in my best interest if i wanted to write programs and apps? Also for people who have taken computer science classes, how was it? Hard? Easy? Time consuming? Was it easy to find a job out of college/school? What kind of work does the class involve and if you got a job out of college in your field what work is involved if it isnt to personal? Im new to this and my senior year of high school is right around the corner and want to start figuring some things out. By the way i do like math so i dont see it as a problem but somethings are tough for me to learn but most things i can catch right on to. Any help is appreciated.

Re: Help with some things.

Posted 01 April 2009 - 11:58 AM

if you were to go into computer science without doing any programming before, it might be pretty tough. I'm not saying you couldnt do it but when I took my CS class, i was very grateful to have already had some programming experience before i get into c++, which is what the CS class was based off of. I'm not saying you couldnt go into blindly, but there are more than enough resources on the web for u to get your feet wet with in the next year before you go to college and see if thats really what u want to go for.

Re: Help with some things.

Posted 01 April 2009 - 02:49 PM

Writing programs and apps is definitely computer science, unless you find a school with even more specific majors. Most often, there are specializations within computer science majors, since it's a very broad field. Here's an example from my school, which divides computer science into 8 threads.

As for the classes, the ease and time needed for your classes varies greatly from person to person. I've seen people with no programming experience breeze through programming classes, and I've seen people who've taken programming in high school have a tough time with classes. Things like this are dependent on how you learn as a student, what your potential professors' teaching styles are like, and how the curriculum is organized. It is definitely true that college courses at "better" universities are more time consuming and difficult than high school courses. Usually, if you have the discipline to take the time to work on and study the material until you get it, you'll be fine. This is true of all majors worth studying. I know most students only struggle here when they don't have the motivation or desire to devote the needed time to their studies and assignments. College is just one big time management practice field.

Unfortunately, I can't give you any relevant info about getting a job out of college as a CS major, as I'm neither out of college nor a CS major. My degree is only half-CS...

You do well in math? Excellent. Your life will be that much easier. If you go into algorithm/AI programming, that will be incredibly useful. If you plan on doing graphics in programming, you'll want to pay a great deal of attention in linear algebra. Most other math-intensive things relating to CS concentrate on calculus, mathematical logic, and a tiny bit of number theory.

I would strongly recommend at least attempting to learn a language or two during your senior year. I personally would recommend trying out Java, though many people learn Python first. Java's easier to learn because it's centralized. Sun hosts both Java tutorials and the entire Java API (application programming interface). Just getting familiar with thinking out how to create a program and getting comfortable with at least one language's syntax will give you a huge advantage.

One thing worth mentioning before you start looking at those is the different types of languages. As I've learned, there are three major types: object-oriented, procedural, and scripting (interpreted) -- someone correct me if necessary. Java is an object-oriented language, and C is procedural. This means that you must follow a very different pattern of thought when developing an application in Java than if you were doing it in C. In short, some languages work very differently from each other, and you'll need to keep this in mind when learning new ones.

Note: If you decide to learn Java, I would strongly recommend using Eclipse as your IDE (integrated development environment). It has nifty things like code-completion and auto-formatting. It's really complex at first, but if you take it slow and take time to figure things out, you'll be fine. If Eclipse isn't fitting, I hear many people are starting to use NetBeans.

Re: Help with some things.

Posted 13 April 2009 - 08:32 PM

Thanks for the help. I've decided that i'm going to try and learn java using netbeans. Reason netbeans and not eclipse seems like more help in netbeans via tutorials and community wise. Anyways i gave the helloworld program a shot and im already in trouble i do exactly what it says but i get an error saying cannont find symbol... Also another thing that i was wondering how do you know were to place your codes like how many spaces/enters/tabs etc.. Thanks again

Re: Help with some things.

Posted 14 April 2009 - 02:43 AM

milkdudz145, on 13 Apr, 2009 - 07:32 PM, said:

Thanks for the help. I've decided that i'm going to try and learn java using netbeans. Reason netbeans and not eclipse seems like more help in netbeans via tutorials and community wise. Anyways i gave the helloworld program a shot and im already in trouble i do exactly what it says but i get an error saying cannont find symbol... Also another thing that i was wondering how do you know were to place your codes like how many spaces/enters/tabs etc.. Thanks again

I personally learned Java using JCreator, and loved it.
for some reason other people don't like JC idk why.
Oh well. Anyways about your question on the tutorial,
you'll have to be more specific to get help on it, and about the
knowing your place to code its just whereever you want to place it
but for better programming you should try to organize your
code as best possible.

this would be a good way to organize your code, and it
should also print out Hello World as in the tutorial. I think
that is most of the tutorial, but i haven't seen it in a while
so I can't remember if its word for word.

Re: Help with some things.

Posted 14 April 2009 - 06:21 AM

JonBernal, on 14 Apr, 2009 - 01:43 AM, said:

milkdudz145, on 13 Apr, 2009 - 07:32 PM, said:

Thanks for the help. I've decided that i'm going to try and learn java using netbeans. Reason netbeans and not eclipse seems like more help in netbeans via tutorials and community wise. Anyways i gave the helloworld program a shot and im already in trouble i do exactly what it says but i get an error saying cannont find symbol... Also another thing that i was wondering how do you know were to place your codes like how many spaces/enters/tabs etc.. Thanks again

I personally learned Java using JCreator, and loved it.
for some reason other people don't like JC idk why.
Oh well. Anyways about your question on the tutorial,
you'll have to be more specific to get help on it, and about the
knowing your place to code its just whereever you want to place it
but for better programming you should try to organize your
code as best possible.

this would be a good way to organize your code, and it
should also print out Hello World as in the tutorial. I think
that is most of the tutorial, but i haven't seen it in a while
so I can't remember if its word for word.

Re: Help with some things.

Posted 15 April 2009 - 08:46 PM

Hah I feel so stupid I thought the L in println was a I so yeah i feel real dumb now, anyways now that i got that down i was wondering if anyone could recommend a book or books that i could get and read them over in school and when im at home.